At the Theundal monastery in the town of Castle Hill, the party hoped to make contact with the resistance. One of the last public bastions of faith in Nenoria, the monastery was a natural choice. The party arrived at dusk, and – passing through the quiet town without incident – availed themselves of the monks’ hospitality.

Their timing could not have been better. In the small hours of the morning, the Athar swept from the darkness to seize the town, and put an end to the followers of Theundine there. Mighty fortress thought it once was, the old castle-come-monastery had no garrison, and the Nenorian forces quickly stormed its gate, and began a purge of its residents.

Roused from their beds as the Sanction warriors breached the gates, the Abbess of the monastery – Cora Setri, an young and charismatic human woman – sought their aid. She explained that an artifact, which she claimed to know little about, had long been kept in the monastery, and could not be allowed to be taken. Though the party sensed she knew more, they did not press the subject.

In the Abbess’s study, the party also met Bael Flintblade, a venerable Trul Bard, of that race’s storytelling Skaldic tradition. With his assistance, they held the leading elements of the Athar’s troops in the castle’s chapel hall while the Abbess recovered the artifact (still sealed in its coffer) from within its wards, and activated the castle’s magical defenses to cover their escape.

As the next wave of Sanction soldiers was blocked by the statue constructs that had sprung to life throughout the castle, the party and their companions made good their escape, descending into the old mine tunnels and catacombs beneath the hill. Thier escape was not a clean one however – the death and magic of the battle above had roused the dead of the crypts to mindless violence.

Though the Abess warned them that the Athar would have sent a patrol into the mines in anticipation of secret escape routs, and lead them quickly through the tunnels, the party was eventually beset by a skeletal hoard. Their scouts seeing an opportunity, the Sanction forces chose the same moment to stage their own attack. Assassins from the shadows, and troops from the front encircled the group.

Abbess Cora, in an effort to strike off the head of their opposition, dove headlong into the battle, breaking past the Athar front lines to engage the Sanctioner in command of the raid. This proved to be a critical error however – The two young women fought, but cut off from support the Abbess was quickly overwhelmed, and driven into submission by her opponent’s magic.

As the Abbess and the relic she carried lay at the Sanctioner’s feat, the enemy commander called out to her senior – apparently her father – using some sort of magical device, and within seconds even more foes arrived. Three deadly and powerful assassins, and a powerful spell caster appeared in a silent flash of light, and vanished as quickly, taking Abbess Cora and her relic with them.

The party fought for their lives in the old mine tunnels, and won out over their foes, but in a sense they had already lost. Their charge was kidnapped from their very presence, and to add insult to injury, the young Sanctioner had fled into the darkness of the mines at the battle’s end. Left with many unanswered questions – and lost in the tunnels without a guide, to boot – they soldiered on.